Children and domestic purposes benefit

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 8

Children and domestic purposes benefit

Bv a Christchurch doctor

The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) has announced an inquiry into domestic purposes benefits, including incentives for solo parents to work outside the home or to remarry'. The present benefit is paid as a weekly allowance for solo parents, but it is stopped for both parent and children when a solo parent remarries and it is reduced drastically if other income exceeds $2l a week. I would like to emphasise the need for the benefit to be restructured. Instead of looking at the incomes of all parents and other beneficiaries, we should look at each child’s physical and emotional needs and expenses. All benefits should be divided into a separate stated amount for each child’s physical needs and another amount stated for the costs involved in caring. Both

amounts should vary with the child’s age and the cost-of-living order. Only the caring part of the benefit should vary with the solo mother’s or father’s own basic needs, income and changing situations such as remarriage or outside employment. The children’s basic benefits should continue. A solo mother or father should not be expected to pay for the children of a former relationship unless both are willing and financially able to adopt the children.

Few men can afford to keep children of two relationships, hence it is not easy for solo parents to remarry. Every child needs food, clothes, accommodation, books, and so on. The Department of Social Welfare pays $ll to $l5 a week to foster-parents for each child’s needs and also provides clothing and pocketmoney. A stated minimum weekly requirement per child should form part of the amount of a domestic purposes benefit, of other benefits, maintenance payments, and of a supplement for all low-income families. Instead of ensuring that income from a D.P.B. does not exceed the male’s minimum weekly wage we should ensure, at all times, that each child’s needs are being met. Children cannot choose their parents so they should not suffer even further from their parents’ disadvantaged situations and society’s neglect. CARING Every child also needs a constant and loving adult when not at school. It is

hoped that when the D.P.B. is changed no child will need to be without such an adult before it starts school, during out-of-school hours and holidays and when it is sick. It is illegal to leave alone any child under* 14 years. If the schoolchild’s mother (or caring adult) cannot obtain appropriate work with suitable hours and required time off for children’s sickness and holidays, that parent should be eligible for either the D.P.8., her own unemployment benefit, or a new supplementary parenthood benefit for all mothers in lowincome families — solo or otherwise.

Emergency and longerterm provisions must be available to such families. A woman may also need retraining for work outside her home. “CHILD-IN-NEED” Our society allows anyone to have children. But it must provide care and a satisfactory minimum allowance for every child-in-need. Can we afford to neglect our children and let them and society suffer? The roots of violence lie in unloved children and neglected individuals. Society gets the children it deserves. Today’s inadequately cared-for children are tomorrow’s inadequate adults and parents. A baby is born and is then protected or neglected, loved or rejected, and matures or reacts accordingly. We have the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child. Now we need to organise ourselves to protect each living child.